It's been a very "hungry" week. Seems pretty typical at this point in my pregnancy, right? My belly is growing rapidly, and I'm finally over the morning [and night] sickness that left me without an appetite for the entire first trimester. Now I must be making up for lost time.
Except, that's not the whole truth. Whether I've been pregnant, or not, I occasionally have days... weeks... when I eat, and eat, and eat-- until I can no longer look at food without feeling gross. No matter how much I eat, I am never satisfied. During these times, I know that I am not physically hungry. I am trying to soothe an ache, relax, or entertain myself. No amount of food will do the trick.
My binging is a dirty little secret that I have carried with me since 7th grade.
I graduated from a sixth grade class of around a dozen, and convinced my parents to enroll me in the local private school that my best friend was attending. I went through a lot of changes in the summer of 1994. I got my period, I got my hair straightened, and my body took on a womanly form.
Not gonna lie--I relished the novelty of attention from the opposite sex. I enjoyed having a fresh look and identity as the new, mysterious girl at school.
However, the friends I followed to this new school changed, too. They had moved on and seemed to quickly make new best friends. Being a shy girl by nature, I struggled to make friends, especially with other girls. I was teased for various reasons, especially if I had a bad hair day. Though the population at school was not much larger than my old school's--there were enough students to bundle themselves into several cliques. The smarties, the athletes, the musicians... I couldn't find a place to call home, to feel like I belonged. I often felt like I had no one to talk to, and that I was left to navigate this period of awkwardness, alone.
I was starving for connection, and security, and acceptance. I went home from school famished every day, and dove headfirst into two, sometimes three full bowls of cereal in a row until I was too full to eat dinner. Which, I ate two or three plates of for good measure. Food didn't solve any of my problems, but it made me forget them for a moment. Food never rejected me or turned its back on me. It didn't abandon me to struggle with my awkwardness. I knew where I stood with food. We were old friends, forever friends.
To be continued...
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